


When the Stars Fall (I Will Lie Awake)

by PictoJournalist



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But He Only Knows One Hecking Song, Canon-Typical Violence, Getting Together, Guitarist Lance (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, If Not Turned Up A Few Notches, Love Confessions, Lowkey Songfic I Guess, Multi, Post Season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 20:49:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15203201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PictoJournalist/pseuds/PictoJournalist
Summary: Keith thinks he and Shiro have completely gotten over the tragic events of their first journey back to Earth when Pandora Radio decides to break their hearts all over again.Before Keith can say anything, he feels Shiro’s breath stop.“Keith,” Shiro finally says, voice cracking. “It’s Lance’s song.”Over campfires and a single breakup song repeated every night, Keith finds himself with two boyfriends and a new, unfortunate perspective of the word “goodbye.”





	When the Stars Fall (I Will Lie Awake)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AutisticKogayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticKogayne/gifts).



> First Voltron fanfic, and I'm super excited! This was a gift to [AutisticKogayne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/autistickogayne) for hurting me with a heartbreaking Heith story. Therefore, this is my revenge! 
> 
> The song referred to through this fic is “Goodbye To You" by Michelle Branch, which you can find [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NERmgwWfnoI)! I also used [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWH65fEt-BQ) cover as part of my inspiration. 
> 
> Nova's the name I use for Keith's space doggo—though I've seen one other writer use that name. I promise I'm not stealing doggo names! 
> 
> Enjoy! <3

Keith thinks he and Shiro have completely gotten over the tragic events of their first journey back to Earth when Pandora Radio decides to break their hearts all over again.

It's not an instantaneous shatter of the heart. In fact, he barely recognizes anything is out of place at first. It’s an unfamiliar song, like most on the station; the station’s focus remains on music from the early 2000s, and that kind of music doesn’t really mean much to Keith. Something, however, is still off.  

He notices before Shiro—at least he thinks he does. It's on the lyric _“It feels like I’m starting all over again"_  that he gets blindsided by some foreign ache in his chest, and it has nothing to do with the fact that Shiro's draped over him at all. Shiro’s weight is a comforting feeling on days like this—where there’s so little energy between them that all they focus on is the radio and the feeling of being wrapped in each other’s arms.

Still, the pain continues pressing like heartburn. It’s gradual, but when it hits its peak, it becomes a familiar but faraway ache. The worst part is that he can't seem to tell where the ache's coming from and why; he doesn't even consider the song as a culprit.

He tests the lyric in his head again. _It feels like I’m starting all over again._ Huh. It's still too foreign. Almost as if it was sung in—

The wrong voice.

And—and played with the wrong instrument.

Before Keith can say anything, he feels Shiro’s breath stop. His Adam’s apple bobs like he’s swallowing, but it doesn’t release, like something’s stuck in Shiro’s throat.

At the same time, Keith loses his own ability to swallow. His entire mouth goes dry. He still can’t let himself remember where or why this song is causing so much sudden _pain_. He can’t understand why it’s hurting Shiro. Keith—and Shiro, probably—have never heard this song before. Have they?

Shiro looks up at Keith, finally. He’s not half as confused as Keith feels (or probably expresses—Keith can feel the crinkles on his forehead turning into a tension headache), and his face has a sort of melancholy written on it that Keith hasn’t seen in years. It’s not a look that Keith ever wanted to see on Shiro ever again. Not since—oh god, that last time had to have been—wasn’t that—?

“Keith,” Shiro finally says, voice cracking. “It’s Lance’s song.”

 

* * *

 

**Five Years Prior**

Despite everything—despite being so many light years away from Earth with no teludav, despite not knowing Lotor’s whereabouts, despite not knowing where or how their next near-death encounter will go—at least the space mall is nearby.  

It’s the one place Lance insists they go to while the team considers their travel plan back to Earth. Everyone has their own requests for the trip, different “pit stops”: Pidge wants to go back to Olkarion, Hunk to the Balmera, and Matt to some rebel fighters he hasn’t seen in forever.

Lance agrees with everyone else’s travel plans. That’s all fine by him. His only condition is that the space mall just _has_ to be somewhere in the final itinerary.

“We barely got to see that place last time!” Lance insists. “I mean, at least Pidge and I didn’t. We spent most of the day trying to get enough GAC for the Killbot Phantasm game. It’d be a good treat to ourselves after so much travelling around.”

It’s a sound enough plan, most people appear to think. Romelle and Matt have never seen the space mall, Allura hadn’t been well enough to check it out last time, Hunk wouldn’t mind checking in on Sal, and Coran, while still not completely over the whole “space pirate” situation, accepts that it’s still something most of the team wants and is willing to set aside his differences.

Keith, however, has some silent reservations. The space mall isn’t necessarily an ally planet in and of itself. They’ve got several animals that probably aren’t allowed in there—save for Kaltenecker, but it’s unlikely the shopkeeper would want him back. They should probably save what little GAC they have right now for a dire situation.

He lets his thoughts slow down for a moment. He finds that he isn’t focusing on the actual words Lance is saying, but the enthusiasm that’s radiating through the whole team all due to his words.

Even Shiro can’t resist Lance’s enthusiasm. Shiro’s arguably been _very_ radiant for someone who just came back from being dead, but Keith can see how hard it’s been for him to process extreme emotion, positive or negative, recently. It just takes too much energy. However, it’s Lance’s enthusiasm that’s bringing Shiro’s energy back for a moment. The two of them are in the Red Lion, going back and forth about their previous, respective space mall antics. On the screen, he sees them face-to-face and positively grinning at each other, all full-bellied laughs and brightening eyes as one of them is reminded of some new memory or idea for their future visit.

It's too sweet for Keith to _not_ put on the top of the agenda.

Keith doesn’t actually join the team into the space mall, though. He stays in the Black Lion and watches over the mice, Kaltenecker, Nova, and Pidge’s trash fuzzies. After all, at least one team member should be pet-sitting, but everyone else has at least one thing they want to do in the mall. Not that Keith minds; he’s honestly been a bit overwhelmed with the events of the past weeks and probably wouldn’t fare well in a place like that right now. He needs a bit of centering time by himself.

The team files back to the Lions in groups of two or three. In every case, at least one person is more than eager to explain to Keith about something they just _had_ to buy, something that they’d never be able to find again if they didn’t get it right at that very moment.

Lance is one of the last in, and he’s back with Shiro and Hunk. While Hunk immediately goes off on a tangent to the rest of the group, gushing on and on about how much Sal’s improved since he left, Keith feels like the only one who notices the leather case Lance is holding. It’s not rectangular—in fact, it’s curved around some edges and skinny along one side—and it would probably be about half of Lance’s height if he stood it up. There are little bedazzled gems along the outer edges of the frame that look a bit too cheap to be believable, but they’re still very pretty.  

Keith apparently looks for a few seconds too long because Lance grins up at him only a few moments later. “You like it? This bad boy’s got a pretty sweet case, but wait ‘till you see the _real_ beauty itself.”

He sets the case on Keith’s seat and fiddles with the side locks with a few snaps until the case hinges open, and Lance pulls out an acoustic guitar. The design on the guitar itself is modern and simple but still has some shine to it that makes it appear brand new. It ages several years when Lance starts fiddling with the worn, leather guitar strap and slips it over his head.

“You went back to the Earth store,” Keith says more than asks, and Lance nods while absentmindedly thumbing over the strings and twisting at some of the tuners at the top of the neck. “Do you even play . . .?”

“Yep! Self-taught. Well, Marco and I kinda taught each other. It’s been a few years, but . . .” Lance shrugs and strums a simple chord. It sounds fine and in-tune to Keith, but Lance’s momentary wince suggests otherwise. “I dunno. I just thought this couldn’t wait until we got back to Earth.”

“Do you remember any songs?”

“One or two, probably.”

“And how much did it cost?”

“Everyone’s leftover GAC _and_ half of my paladin armor.”

“ _What?!_ ”

Lance guffaws, and it’s more of a freeing sight to see than when Shiro and Lance were laughing together in Red. He’s doubled over, almost, while trying to catch a breath.

Just when it seems like he’s about to stop, Lance takes in Keith’s half-furious, half-baffled face. It’s just too priceless for Lance, which makes him burst into even heartier laughter.

There’s heat building on up Keith’s face within seconds while he tries to simultaneously sort through his understanding of the situation _and_ how much he loves to see Lance this expressively gleeful.

It gets even more adorable when Shiro looks back and tries to ask Lance what’s going on—only for Lance to start laughing _harder_ again, and Shiro’s trying to decode the situation for himself. He looks back at Keith, who can’t give much more than a grin and a helpless shrug.

 

* * *

 

Travel starts to get tedious soon after their first few days.

According to Pidge, the best route is to go directly through a solar system with relatively few occupied planets. It’s safe, confirmed by rebel forces, but this solar system takes up a ridiculously large amount of their expected travel time.

“On top of that,” Pidge explains early on, “the landings will slow us down. I’ve been tracking the orbit in this solar system, and it’s not consistent—enough that it’s going to mess with everyone’s circadian rhythms. Most of us will probably average thirteen hours of sleep a night. We’ll definitely be more behind schedule than any of us might have anticipated.”

“It’s not really a _bad_ thing to be behind schedule,” Hunk says. “It helps we don’t actually have a real schedule. Just . . . it can add up quickly. It might help to skip a few of the trips we were thinking about taking to the other planets” —he makes a face at the thought, and it’s definitely because they haven’t gotten to the Balmera yet— “but it wouldn’t help overall.”  

“Okay,” Keith says, “but _what_ can we do about that? Should we—would it be better to move out of this solar system? Figure out some way to work with our soon-to-be-messed-up circadian rhythms?”

When they can’t decide by that night, everyone too tired to keep going, Keith advises everyone to keep their minds open to try something else.

Nothing happens for several more nights. They planet-hop, and they settle in each of their respective Lions each night, the cold floors of each being rough and unforgiving for their already-exhausted states.

Suddenly, Romelle starts feeling some connection to the Blue Lion. That’s when both and she and Allura get the answer they’ve been waiting for.

“It will take time,” Romelle explains from beside Allura on the video screen, “but the Blue Lion believes we can set up a makeshift paladin sequence so we can travel in shifts. We’ll just need to spend more time bonding with the other Lions . . . and with each other.”

Keith sees Coran brighten at the revelation, and he can’t tell whether it’s due to potentially being a future paladin or the prospect of some bonding time with the other teammates. Given who Coran is, it’s probably both. Hunk, sitting next to Coran, turns to look back at him, and his grin also widens. Then there’s Pidge from a completely different Lion, but she also seems to catch on.

“You’re thinking what we’re thinking, aren’t you?” Pidge asks.

“Monsters and Mana? Always. The bigger the party, the better! In fact, it might be a good idea to distribute the character tablets when we . . . land . . .” He trails off, and then he pales. “Assuming I . . . remembered to grab—oh _no_.”

Coran swiftly disappears from the screen.

Lance, finally piecing the puzzle together, groans. “What? No Monsters and Mana? I mean, it was one of the nerdiest things we’d ever done, but it was so much fun, and—and Keith never— _Shiro_ , you didn’t really—” He splutters a few more fragments before giving up and sitting back in silent mourning. Shiro, next to him, gives a confused but sympathetic look and rubs his thumb over Lance’s shoulder.

Keith’s still lost, but he accepted long ago that that’s probably going to be a reality for a long, long time.

“I mean,” Keith finally says, which is enough to get Lance to look up (and oh, his puppy dog face is so exaggerated, it’s cute, help), though it’s clear that he doesn’t really have a plan for his next words. So, he improvises. “Step one would be to just . . . get out of the Lions a little more, I guess. Maybe take turns sleeping in one of the Lions, or maybe we can just, you know, camp out under the stars? We’re still in a warm part of this solar system.”

Shiro looks surprised by the suggestion. “Camping? I didn’t take you to be someone who’d enjoy that.”

Keith snorts a little bit and looks back at Krolia, who has a similarly amused expression on her face. Shiro takes a while to connect the dots. When he does, his entire expression deflates, but Keith can’t hold back a little laugh.

“Maybe,” Keith says. “To be fair, you weren’t around for any of my camping experiences. I mean, even if I didn’t like camping, it’s our best bet right now.”  

Logically, the suggestion makes sense. Some people in the group have only been in the same room for an hour total. If they’re going to want some pleasant form of team bonding, especially in their current situation, it’s their best bet.

When they land for the night, half of the team’s unable to keep their eyes open for another moment (damn this solar system for its fucked-up time bullshit). So much for team bonding. It’s still a good chance to get used to their new setup, so Keith halfheartedly stumbles out of the Black Lion, his sleeping bag and some pillows in toll.

He somewhat hears Krolia taking over the comms and reminding everyone of the plan to put in some effort to set up camp, and he _swears_ he can hear Hunk whining back at her. It would probably be funnier and easier to process after a night of sleep.

They all settle around a messy fireplace Krolia and Coran piece together while most everyone else is starting to settle into various states of unconsciousness. Keith can’t even process any internal belief suggesting he’s weak for being so exhausted; he collapses into his sleeping bag and goes still.

Even then, he’s not completely asleep. He feels Nova settle behind him, her fur pressing against his back as she lies down. He hears some shuffling, feels a thumb rubbing against the stress lines on his forehead—he lets out a frustrated noise at that, even though he can tell it’s Shiro and it’s something Shiro’s always done—and finally, he hears one string continuously being strummed.

“You’re not tired, Lance?” Shiro asks.

“Nah. Well, a little. Not enough to settle down yet.”

Lance switches to another string, then another.

Shiro hums. “Quality sound for being in space for so long.”

“Oh, definitely,” Lance agrees.

“Do you . . . you know some songs, right?”

“Honestly? None I can remember that well. Maybe one. It’d take some experimenting, though.”

“What one?”

“Some breakup song. I think it’s called something like ‘Goodbye To You’? Veronica wouldn’t stop listening to it after her first ex, so I cheered her up by learning it for her. It wasn’t super hard to learn—and it’s kinda catchy.”

“Huh. Want to give it a shot?”

“Might as well.”

The strumming of singular strings turns into rich chords which start and stop without warning. Lance’s voice accompanies the guitar, sometimes, but the lyrics are mumbly and too far away for Keith to process what the words are.

At least he can tell it sounds good. He’s not one to put words on what makes music sound good, but Lance’s voice feels soft and safe and sounds good next to the guitar. He also recognizes how soulful it sounds when he cracks open one eye for a second and sees Lance’s eyes shut and his face set in concentration. It doesn’t look like a frustrated concentration, though—more like concentration of feeling the song, remembering the way the song and his heart connect.

Keith also catches Shiro complimenting Lance on his guitar playing and singing voice, and Lance’s laugh afterward sounds uncharacteristically embarrassed.

It’s adorable. That’s Keith’s last waking thought, he’s sure, until the statement revises itself in his head: _they’re_ adorable.

 

* * *

 

Some nightly routine starts forming, and surprisingly, it all centers around that song.

It turns out Keith was one of the only ones who fell asleep so quickly that first night of camping, and everyone else witnessed Lance remembering the entirety of his song. Not that Keith would admit it out loud, but he’s sort of jealous that he’s the only one who missed that first real playthrough.

However, Lance plays it the next night, and the night after that, and the night after that, until everyone just accepts that’s the only song he really remembers how to play, and the rhythm of their nightly routine is set in place.

It always starts out with a campfire. All the team members lend a hand in creating the fire and then take a seat around it. The seating’s a little different each time. Coran never sits in the same spot twice. Hunk travels in a circle. Krolia sits next to whoever she last talked to through the comms. Keith always sits right by Shiro who, in turn, sits by Lance.

It feels improbable that they would have anything worth talking about after doing nothing but flying and speaking through comms all day, but they still find stories to tell and ways to make each other laugh. Keith leans into Shiro’s side, feels Lance’s hand nudge against his head while he’s resting on Shiro’s other side, feels both of their reverberating laughter, their joy—and he loves every second of it.

They stay in that setup for a while, and then he feels Lance’s weight lift off him and Shiro. Lance only ever gets up these nights to help stabilize the fire or get the guitar.  Nine times out of ten, it’s the guitar.

Keith stays pressed up against Shiro even as the best part of the night begins. Lance plays the song again, and it’s just as soft and gentle as the first time.

It never really feels like the breakup song he claims it is. That might just be because Keith rarely has the energy to consider the meaning of the lyrics. He’s sure there’s something undeniably tragic in there that he’s missing, but it’s Lance’s voice and Lance’s playing and that’s all Keith really cares about.

Others have started to pick up on lyrics, including Keith himself, and it seems they’re all at least remembering the chorus. Most remember it enough that they’ve started singing along. Just to the chorus so far, though.

(Matt’s an exception. He sings the bitter verses with accuracy and the most overdramatic sincerity of all time. He grasps onto others' hands and shoves them away again and points accusing fingers and clutches at his chest and elicits giggles all around as he sing-weeps about a nonexistent love story fallen short as if each person around the campfire had personally stomped on his heart and ran it through a shredder.)

All the while, Lance and Shiro glow the most among the firelight. Shiro stumbles over lyrics, but Lance emphasizes the words that he’s not quite getting so he can remember it a little better. At the points where Shiro’s confident in the lyrics, Lance shifts into a higher register and adds a sweet layer of harmony. Shiro might not be much of a singer, and Lance isn’t a professional, but their voices blend so naturally that they might as well be.

At least until Shiro forgets the lyrics again. Then Lance re-adjusts the register of his voice again and takes over the melody, but he gives Shiro the fondest, proudest, loveliest look while he continues to strum and sing along.

The chorus repeats several more times—many more times than really exists in the song, Keith knows. Still, everyone accepts it with little questioning and many of them sing along in earnest. Others add their own vocal twists on it.

“All right, solos!” Lance calls out on the break before the next chorus. “You’d better know the chorus by now, or have someone else teach you! Hunk, you’re up!”

Lance strums a few more times in preparation. Hunk, taking the whole thing at least seven levels too seriously, sits up straight and clears his throat. His voice absolutely croons the lyrics.

“ _Goodbye to yooou_ ,” Hunk draws out the lyric a bit longer than the rhythm dictates for dramatic measure. He handles the next lyric with ease as well—still not the same as the static rhythm Lance had taught, but he makes it his own. “ _Goodbye to everything I thought I kneeew.”_

“Hell yeah!” Lance yells while others cheer and applaud. Immediately, he follows up with “Allura, spotlight’s on you!”

She catches the cue quick enough to jump in with the second half of the chorus. “ _You were the one I loved, the one thing that I tried to hold onto.”_ Her tempo and tone are consistent, even if the range feels a bit low on her voice from Lance’s lower key signature adjustment.

It’s strange to Keith that Allura is grinning, seemingly oblivious of the lyrics’ meaning. He can only imagine that the song’s message, considering it’s a breakup song, would affect her the most, given what happened with Lotor. That just doesn’t appear to be true.

All the while, Lance’s eyes wander across the circle, and he shouts the name of the next person he wants to sing one half of the chorus. None are spared. Krolia feigns forgetting the lyrics but is forced to suffer through three more choruses of Lance staring at her expectantly and strumming the guitar with no mercy. Pidge gets thrown and spun over Matt’s shoulder until she squeals when she initially refuses to contribute.

Before Keith can realize it, Lance is calling out to Romelle, and Keith’s the only person Lance hasn’t called on. The mischievous look he catches Lance throwing at him isn’t any more comforting.

In fact, Lance doesn’t even say a word at Keith—just nods at him.

Keith shakes his head.

Lance nods again, more insistent with his grin growing even larger.

Keith realizes he’s getting weak because he’s seriously considering it. (It’s Lance’s smile, damn it all.)

Seconds before Keith’s turn, Lance’s strumming on the guitar settles. The strumming is gentle and ushers for Keith’s voice to accompany it.

Keith’s voice has never been fantastic, he thinks, because he doesn’t add embellishments or vibrato to his voice. But soon enough, he’s falling into Lance’s trap. He feels the fact that he’s singing more than he hears it. Is he singing the right lyrics? He’s not sure. His singing voice feels foreign from misuse and a lack of training and an unfamiliar genre, but he makes it work.

He sees people genuinely smiling at him. He sees Shiro’s eyebrows rising in surprise. Lance doesn’t look surprised, but the smile is just as soft as his guitar-playing. He’s singing and he’s making Shiro and Lance smile.

While others have been singing the first or second half of the chorus, Keith realizes too late that he’s finished it off, took the entire chorus all for himself.

Lance keeps strumming the same chord, never really resolving until he snaps out of his stupor and throws in a last-second resolving chord to bring the song to an immediate stop. Keith knows there’s an extra few lyrics at the end of the chorus that Lance omitted, not that he remembers what they are.

The polite applause that was going around the campfire grows much louder. There’s chunks of cheers and compliments, some directed at him, that don’t quite meet his ears.

Keith only meets two faces looking back at him. Shiro still look just as surprised and Lance just as satisfied, but there’s something similar in both of them. They’re looking at him with with such pride and—

He can’t let himself call it _love_ the way his heart wants him to, but it’s almost possible—

And he knows the dumbstruck look he can’t keep off his face can’t hide the love he feels right back.

 

* * *

 

Even though it’s not ideal to spend more than half his time asleep, Keith accepts this part of the new pattern with ease. He’s used to insomnia and general restlessness, but a schedule like this leaves no room for that kind of nonsense.

But Keith isn’t Shiro, and Shiro’s a different story entirely.

His heart sinks in his chest when he’s disturbed out of his sleep by too-familiar whimpering at his side. It’s the same whimpering Keith would hear each night in the Castle of Lions when Shiro would be hit with plaguing terrors of his year of captivity with the Galra that he couldn’t escape from in dreams.

Keith sits up and looks down at Shiro. He’s not moving much and his whimpers are intermittent and quiet. It’s better than most of the fits he’s seen Shiro through, but it still hurts.

Even now, Keith has to remind himself repeatedly what Shiro told him long ago:  _Don’t wake me up_. _I don’t want to hurt you. I won’t be thinking straight and I could hurt you. Remember, I’ll wake up eventually._

A little part of Keith wants to believe that Shiro’s words from back then don’t apply right now. This nightmare feels different, born from a different sort of pain. The fight with Zarkon that killed him, probably. As irrational as the thought is, Keith swears this slight change in circumstance means it should be okay to wake Shiro up.

Nova’s started whimpering, too, but Keith can calm her easily with a hush and an order to stay. He pets the top of her head while she looks up at her with overly innocent eyes. He even tells her aloud that Shiro will feel better if she stays back and that it’s all going to be okay.

He turns back to Shiro, and he’s about to give into his instincts and move his hand to Shiro’s shoulder when he sees Lance sit up on Shiro’s other side. He’s making little, confused, tired noises, but he’s looking over in his and Shiro’s direction with his eyes squinted, attempting to adjust his vision to account for the darkness. After some moments of blank staring pass, Lances’ eyes suddenly blow wide. He crawls out of his sleeping bag and shuffles on his knees to Shiro’s other side.

“Don’t touch him,” Keith says softly before he can really think. “He’ll wake up.”

Lance looks back up at Keith and nods seriously, but then his face falls. “Does this happen a lot?”

“Used to. Sometimes. I’m not sure. It’s the first time I’ve seen him like this in . . .” He’s about to say _a few years,_ but his sleep-addled brain isn’t letting him translate the words to Lance’s timeline well.

It doesn’t appear to matter to Lance. His eyes grow shiny in the moonlight while he studies the shifts in Shiro’s expression. What was once a twitch of the corner of his mouth is slowly turning to heavy gulps of air like he’s about to be dunked underwater, punctuated with straining noises in the back of his throat.

At the same time, Lance looks more helpless by the second. He holds up his left hand as if he’s uncertain about what to do with it. Actually, he looks pretty certain, but he knows that he shouldn’t.

“Could we—we couldn’t try to wake him up by talking to him, could we?” Lance asks.

Keith nods. “Actually, that’s what I was about to do.” That’s a lie, an exceedingly tiny lie, and he can’t figure out exactly why he wanted to lie like that in front of Lance.

Lance sits on the back of his legs, his hands gripping at his kneecaps.

“Shiro?” he asks quietly, soft, slow, but the next words spill out in a spontaneous flow. “Shiro, it’s okay, everything’s okay, you’re safe and you’re alive. You’re with me and Keith, and you’re asleep, but you’ll be okay if you wake up, okay? We’re not leaving you even if you don’t. You’re out camping with all of us, and—and we were all just singing a few hours ago. You had the sweetest smile on your face, Shiro, like everything in the world was perfect, and you’re perfect, and Keith and I know—we want to know that.”

Keith is stunned; Lance is sure willing to speak his own thoughts aloud without permission. He’s not wrong, though. With how little he’s contributed so far, he feels like he needs to speak up, at least a little. He adds, smooth and low, “You’re going to be okay. We know you’re going to be okay. We know because you’re Shiro, and you’re so strong, and we love you.”

Lance nods like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.

Shiro’s not quite done tossing around with distressed whines, but he’s settling more with each encouraging word of love and support. Keith’s sure Shiro’s fallen into a peaceful sleep again for a few seconds, but then his eyebrows knit close together again and there’s more distressed noises.

This time, he’s accompanied by Nova’s whines. She finally makes her way over, even as Keith sees her slinking by and warns her again to stay back, and starts licking Shiro’s palm.

“No, _no_ —Nova, get back,” Keith scolds, gently pushing Nova away from Shiro. Nova whines back at him.

Shiro, meanwhile, awakens immediately. Eyes wide and calculating and looking for the danger he’d just been facing a moment ago, he looks up between Keith and Lance, and a hoarse, confused noise worked its way out of his throat. “What . . .?”

“Just a nightmare, Shiro.” Lance smiles, and his grip on his kneecaps goes slack while he pushes Shiro’s hair away from his face. “But you fought it. How’re you feeling?”

Though he doesn’t look any more comprehensive, Shiro leans into Lance’s touch. He even holds Lance’s hand in place and shuts his eyes again like he wants to memorize the sensation.

“You two were talking to me, weren’t you?” Shiro asks.

Keith smiles—he’s glad that got through. “We were.”

“Wow.” Shiro chuckles. “You were saying really nice things, if I heard them right. I—uh.” He stops. He turns his eyes away and bites his lip, a nervous laugh working its way out of him. “. . . Actually, never mind. Lots of—weird stuff was going on my head. Forget I said anything.”

That’s a part of Shiro Keith remembers, too—one where he’s able to give endless affection but receive a limited amount back. It makes heart ache knowing that he can’t fathom Lance and Keith saying that they love him, and it must be a testament to _something_ that he’d easily believe those kinds of words appearing in his dreams.

Keith’s not going to let him deny it.

He puts his hand over Shiro’s hand, which is still holding Lance’s hand in place. Shiro turns his own hand toward Keith’s as he comes to realize that Lance wouldn’t dare pull away at a time like this. Instead, Shiro’s hand accepts Keith’s tender invitation. His hand is clammy, but it doesn’t stand out as much from how cold Keith’s hands feel. Their hands pull together and create an intimate warmth.

Slowly, Keith says, “We _were_ telling you a lot about how much we love you.”

Shiro looks even more surprised. Keith can see every ounce of that surprise even though Shiro still won’t meet his eyes. It’s sweet—adorable—but it still hurts Keith to see, a little bit.

“It’s that much of a surprise to you?”

Shiro shrugs.

Lance’s gaze turns even softer, and his thumb strokes Shiro’s check. “I wish it wasn’t. It’s hard under all those thoughts in your head, I’m thinking. But I hope we can make it clear to you.”

Through his time in being awake, it hits Keith that his eyes have looked a bit dazed and unfocused, likely due to coming fresh out of a bad nightmare, the entire time. He only recognizes it when he takes in Shiro’s face _after_ Lance’s words; it becomes clear, comprehending, but still dumbfounded.  A bashful smile grows on his face, but Shiro attempts to stifle it—in the process gaining an even brighter blush.

Shiro looks back at Keith with a silent plea of understanding written on his face. Keith nods and squeezes his hand.

“I,” Shiro sighs, and there’s another confused chuckle bubbling in his chest. He sits up with some struggle, considering his lack of a right arm, but Lance and Keith put a hand to Shiro’s back to help. “It _should_ be clear, if this is how insistent the two of you are. And—I guess I’ve seen it. A lot. I just didn’t want to—misunderstand. Scare either of you. You two deserve—”

Lance shushes him before he can finish. Now it’s his turn to look surprised. “Shiro, no. You deserve the universe and beyond.” Then, he fidgets. “I mean, you can’t talk about what _you_ deserve when you’re _you_. God, Shiro—you and Keith, you deserve so, so much better.”

Lance’s words are stilted, confused, lost. Keith’s losing track of Lance’s message. He’s trying to connect the mental dots, see where this shift is coming from, what point Lance is trying to make. He understands how Lance understands how much he loves Shiro. But this? It’s so distant from Lance, like he’s trying to separate himself from the love he just admitted to Shiro, even when it’s so obvious how much Shiro adores Lance back. Both being so blind to the other’s affection just isn’t—

Oh. _Oh._

“Lance,” Keith says softly. His free hand goes to Lance’s free hand and holds it tight. This grasp is much warmer than Shiro’s but not any less welcome. “You deserve it, too.”

Lance’s eyes suddenly look much waterier. He’s looking at Keith with such disbelief and astonishment—so similar to what Shiro looked like just moments ago. But he puts Keith’s and his clasped hands and puts them close to his chest. They’re an awkward tangle of limbs by now, Keith recognizes, but the soft looks between Shiro and Lance and those looks he gets right back—well, those are easier to pay attention to.

There’s a ring of confessions that follows when everything starts feeling too quiet. Keith can’t remember what exactly he says, but Lance and Shiro never laugh or tease him about having no clear train of thought to his words—damn it, he just wants them to know how much he loves them, and that’s all he should ever have to say to let them believe it.

And thankfully, it’s not him, but Shiro (or maybe Lance—whoever it is, it’s not him, and it’s probably for the better that it’s not) who finally asks about the potential of the three of them dating, and there’s resounding agreement.

Soon enough, lacking a filter and through a daze of sleepiness, Keith suddenly blurts out, “Shit, I want to kiss you so bad right now.”

Shiro and Lance stifle back a laugh, but Lance asks, “Which one?”

“Both,” Keith says, probably sounding a tad too desperate. “Both of you.”

They trade simple kisses through the night. Shiro’s lips are chapped but feather-light to the touch. Lance’s, while softer, go deeper. When Shiro and Lance kiss, they visibly have to compromise, Lance’s kiss becoming softer and Shiro’s becoming bolder. It elicits such a beautiful feeling in Keith. With both his loves—his loves, his _boyfriends_ , the two he adores—showing such adoration to each other, the warmth in his chest radiates through his whole body.

And if Krolia just so happens to wake up among it all, she stays quiet. At least until they’re all flying again and she’s sure the comms are off when she oh-so-innocently asks about how long Keith was planning to keep his mates a secret.

 

* * *

 

The cycle of camping goes on and on and on. Things change slowly, but those changes mean the world.

Lance still flies Red by day and plays guitar by evening. By late night, he’s playing for only Keith and Shiro, and the lyrics change just the subtlest amounts.

If it was a breakup song at first, Lance manages to swing the whole song around into a nightly confessional for the two of them. (It’s still so hard to believe, even now, that he’s Lance and Shiro’s love and they all love each other and if he thinks about it for too long his heart turns right back to goop—not that it’s such a bad thing.)

Within a few weeks, those evening campfire sessions include the more reserved singers. Romelle asks Lance to teach her a layer of harmony, so Lance drops down to a lower harmony, and Romelle’s voice grows and adds a chime to the song that makes it even more satisfying to the ear.

Pidge also stops fighting eventually, and so does Krolia—in fact, it takes her the longest to get to the point of comfort with the song, but she gets there. Keith doesn’t pick apart the individual voices, but he realizes how good it sounds (or maybe just how fun it is) to have this kind of moment with the whole team.

Krolia, after her first sing-through, is showered with compliments on her voice and congratulations on finally joining in, but she’s not quite smiling yet. She seems confused, even more so than the first time she heard the song. Finally, she confesses that, while she’s heard the lyrics so many times, she can’t grasp the meaning.

“It’s too . . . simple,” Krolia explains. Her words are slow and calculated, topped off with brows knitted together. She doesn’t stumble, but she thinks through her words twelve too many times before saying them. “Emphasizing a message of leaving an undesired relationship with such simplicity. I can’t say it’s a . . . relatable topic.”

Lance fidgets, and Keith feels the same discomfort. He knows where both Lance and Krolia are coming from. On one hand, Lance only knows this one song and doesn’t really have the means to learn another, and the message, on a surface level, is not optimistic. Still, even past that level of pessimism, Krolia’s struggling. She wants to relate to the song, and she did have to say goodbye, once—just not of her own desire.

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Lance says. It’s probably good that he’s the one who does; Krolia’s been much more open with Shiro and Lance after Keith explained their new dating situation and eventually announced the development to the whole team, so Lance knows a bit more about where Krolia’s coming from. “What the song means to you—it’s ultimately up to you. Switch up some lyrics, think of something else that means something to you. It’s just the one thing we have right now.”

Krolia nods seriously. Her gaze, shifting to the campfire, radiates introspection. But there’s still a crinkle of misunderstanding, struggling to understand, and maybe a twinge of internal issues she’s rooting through all the while.

“Unless . . .” Lance starts trailing off. “I mean, we can stop if the song’s making you uncomfortable. It’s no big deal, seriously! We just don’t need the guitar.”

Her eyes snap up from the fire right away. “Absolutely not,” she insists. “We’re closer to a group bond than we’ve ever had before. What I fear is unnecessarily holding us back because _I’m_ having difficulties finding some personal understanding of the song.”

For half a moment, Keith allows himself to recognize the absurdity of the situation. Five paladins and five equally strong companions, huddled around a campfire, basically in hibernation mode, and they’re trying to come to an understanding of how to best internalize a lyrical message. Keith hasn’t got much to add, and not once has he paid close attention to the lyrics—but his mother, who shares similarities with him in ways that everyone can see clear as day by now, is agonizing over them.

It’s been hard to see her frustrated that she’s “lagging behind” in the process of team bonding. They’ve spent just over fifteen nights setting up camp on various planets, which doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve lost a lot of time. She’s been connecting fine with the Black Lion—just as Shiro bonded with Red, Coran with Yellow, Romelle with Blue, and Matt with Green. But in connecting with the rest of the team, that’s where the struggles come in.

There’s some level of responsibility she sets on herself, being one of the oldest (and likely among the most mature) in the group, but her own experiences with acting as a spy for the Blade on top of that gap of relatability doesn’t really help her. And then there’s this song, which seems to connect _everyone_ except for her where she’s the one who’s supposed to act as a standby pilot for the literal head of Voltron.

“Admittedly,” Allura says, “without the experience, taking the song very literally is difficult—perhaps even insulting in some cases. I can think of at least three different races who would find complete offense in the suggestions of this song if only because their races mate for life.”

Hunk makes an upset noise that he attempts to stifle. “Oh—I, uh, never considered that. Krolia, that’s not your case—?”

“No, no," she reassures. "Very few Galra subcultures, if any, have that mindset.” Still, she doesn't look completely sincere.

Romelle's the next one to act. She stands up, sits on her knees next to Krolia, and puts a hand on her shoulder. “Maybe not your specific culture, but it can mean something to you. That's okay. We might not have a complete team bond, but we can feel your hurt.”

Krolia's hand forms a fist in her lap. Something in Romelle's words strikes her. So, she takes a deep breath once, twice, and explains.

She recalls having to leave Earth, leaving Keith and his father behind. How she knew from the beginning that there was a chance that the Empire would find the Blue Lion and endanger the entire planet again. How she begged and pleaded to deities across every culture she'd encountered, hoping she would never, ever have to say goodbye to her greatest decision.

The words sound strange coming from someone like Krolia, even to Keith. She's discussed the exact same sentiment to him during their time on the space whale—but he's her son, not a crowd of people, many of whom she's known for only a few weeks.

When she finishes, no one speaks. There's a wave of sympathetic expressions. Romelle never stops rubbing Krolia’s shoulder.

Finally, Krolia clears her throat “I suppose one thing I want to emphasize—seeing how young most of you are—is that this message can be misleading. In anything you love, you rarely anticipate saying goodbye. Even if you think you're ready, you may not be, ever. Now, I trust that you’re all plenty smart, but even I was blinded by that unfair truth.”

When Keith looks around, there's some sense of understanding he feels radiating through each team member. Allura looks especially stricken by the statement, but something's dawning on her. Shiro's mouth goes slack-jawed for a bit, then it sets in understanding. Lance—when Keith meets Lance's eyes, he looks so sad, as if Keith's planning on leaving him right then and there. He takes his hand and squeezes it tight.

“At least,” Krolia finally says, allowing a small smile, “I think I understand the appeal of the song, now.”

Somehow, and Keith can't remember exactly how, the campfire circle turns into a discussion on things each person refuses to say goodbye to. Krolia's is Keith; no matter what he chooses to do from here on out, she’ll find her way to stay with him. Allura’s is the hope of preserving a safe life for the rest of the Alteans; so is Romelle’s. Coran and Hunk share the same sentiment for preserving happiness through the whole team. Pidge refers to the goodbye she refused to say the Matt, and Matt admits the same about Pidge, fondly recalling how thankful he was that Pidge had the Holt brains that helped them find their dad.

Shiro, Lance, and Keith don't have to say words. No one makes them—especially because Lance looks like he's about to have a breakdown. He doesn't, but Keith's sure that he gets too close to that point.

In the silence, Keith feels a rumble. He sits up as he tries to process what the feeling is, but he sees many of the others—in fact, everyone else—do the same. Then, he hears growling. It's familiar growling. Lion growling.

The eyes of the Lions brighten. They stand up tall.

“Is that . . .?” Matt asks, and Allura nods beside him.

Krolia nods, donning a prideful smile as the Lions’ roar echoes across the planet.

When they settle again, she says, “No more camping, then. Not until we get to Earth.”

 

* * *

 

Eight days later, they're out of the SSS—Sleepy Solar System, they’ve taken to calling it. They're within mere days of getting to Earth, Pidge is sure.

Their bodies just don't seem to believe it.

Sure, they expected to still be a bit tired for the first couple of days. But Keith starts getting frustrated when he’s still sleeping more than half the day on day three out of the SSS.

He wakes up that day to Krolia shouting his name repeatedly as he nearly drowns from Nova licking at his face. The amount of wolf-saliva on his face acts as a testament to how long he really stayed asleep through Krolia’s efforts. Even then, he barely stays awake the entire time he takes his shift on the Black Lion.

At least it isn’t just him and Krolia struggling; everyone seems to be having trouble orienting a tradeoff schedule. They keep dropping off at planets slightly off their track to switch pilots, but no one ever wakes up at an appropriate time. It takes full-team efforts, sometimes, to wake a single team member.

Shiro, however, isn’t forced to wake up like the others.

“I can handle it,” Lance insists. His voice is airy and his words are a little slurred. He's obviously trying to feign his usual energy. “Shiro's still recovering from—you know—being dead in the Black Lion. I'm not even tired!”

“You _are_ tired,” Keith insists. There are few times when Lance lets himself look less than perfect, so it's strange and unsettling to see bags of puffy, dark circles under his eyes.

Lance shakes his head even firmer. “Nope!”

He deflects everyone else's arguments, too, as Keith enlists different awakened team members to try to convince Lance to trade shifts with Shiro. Pidge dodges past Lance and tries to wake up Shiro on her own—and Lance tackles her before she can even touch Shiro. No one has enough energy to argue with Lance in the end, though, so Keith is forced to let them move on with a stubborn, insanely sleep-deprived Lance among them.

They land again just a couple hours later when Lance starts snoring into the comms.

At least Shiro’s easy enough to wake by then. The only downside is that Lance is too exhausted to process Shiro telling him to wake him up next time.

Lance doesn’t continuously try to steal Shiro’s shifts, but he keeps staying awake. When he starts getting sleepy, he rambles on and on and on in the way he does when he wants to avoid falling asleep. He tries to act as a co-pilot for Shiro, on the lookout for nonexistent dangers.

When Shiro finally tells him to go to sleep, Keith hears Lance whispering to Shiro over the comms. Shiro sputters, forming unintelligible sentence fragments—oh dear god, Lance is flirting to bribe staying awake—and takes a deep breath.

“Keith,” Shiro says, “help me out here.”

“Get some sleep, Lance,” Keith says, because he doesn’t really know what else to say.

“But I don’t want to,” Lance groans.

The other team members start adding their own attempts at demands to sleep. Lance deflects each argument just as easily.

The next time they land on a planet cleared safe by the rebels, Keith tells Krolia that he’s going to be staying in the Red Lion for his next shift. Shiro lets him in with no issues, but Lance’s eyes widen when he realizes what tactic Keith’s going to try pulling next.

“No tactics,” Keith says—you know, like a liar. “I’m just tired. There’s no crime in wanting to spend one night with my boyfriends, is there?”

He doesn’t quite think at the time that his words are going to be that effective. But he must be doing something right with his tone, or his expression, or something, because Lance opens his mouth like he’s going to argue back and chooses not to at the last second.

Instead, Lance offers to get him pillows and blankets. Keith accepts.

Before Lance even comes back with everything, Keith lies on his side with his back against the wall of the Red Lion. As he usually does in Black when he wants to sleep, he folds his hands and puts it under his head and curls his legs closer to his body. That’s usually the point where he wouldn’t be able to stop his eyes from fluttering shut and falling into a deep sleep.

Except, at the moment, he feels wide awake.

That’s a first in several weeks. He only then realizes that he’s been feeling less and less tired with every passing day, though he’s been sleeping about the same amount each day. Maybe a little less, recently. Maybe he’s finally snapping out of the SSS’ trance.

Lance comes back with the blankets and pillows, and he has a sweet—yet utterly exhausted—smile when he sees Keith curled up. He takes care to kneel by him and fluff up the pillows before easing them under Keith’s head.  He starts to tuck in the corners of the sheet around him when Keith stops him and holds the corner of the blanket closest to him out.

“Lay down with me for a little bit?” he asks.

Again, he must be on a roll, because Lance barely resists. Maybe he looks unsure for half a second. Still, he ultimately gives in and lies down. Keith considers wrapping his arms around Lance, but Lance does so first. He’s . . . strangely complacent, given how stubborn he’s been over the past few days.

Keith accepts it anyways and holds Lance close with one hand around his waist, resting his forehead against Lance’s. One of Lance’s hands rubs up and down his back, a gesture Keith melts under. He feels Lance chuckle and sees his smile become softer and more relaxed.

He also sees Lance’s eyes shut and feels his breath slowing down. He’s falling asleep.

“So, you’ll sleep now?” Keith teases, and he mentally berates himself because this is exactly what he wanted to see Lance do and he asks the dumb question anyways.

Lance huffs and holds Keith closer. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” Keith says, “but I’m also worried. Shiro and I don’t want to see you exhausting yourself like you are. Is something wrong?”

Lance goes still. But, given a few more seconds, he sighs. “It’s hard to sleep. After what Krolia said.”

Keith has to wrack his brain to figure out what Lance is referring to. While she’s not usually awake at the same time as him, she’s busy being the half-time head of Voltron and giving a lot of orders that he hears just before he’s about to doze off. He’s sure most of those things are important, too—he just hasn’t had the energy to try retaining any of it.

But then it hits him.

“The thing about goodbyes?”

“Yeah. It’s . . .” Lance takes a deep breath. “Keith, I love you and Shiro _so_ much. And we’re in the middle of a war. Even if we’re going to Earth, we’re going to have to go back to it. It’s so easy to . . . to start worrying about the two of you. About the possibility that something’s going to happen, that I’m going to have to say goodbye to you too early.”

On one hand, Keith recognizes and remembers how important Krolia’s message was. But how much it’s affecting Lance makes Keith wish she could take it all back.

“What does that have to do with sleeping, then?” Keith asks.

“I can’t see you two when I’m asleep. I mean, I do. Sometimes.” He pauses. “It’s just . . .  it hurts a lot when I do. I see one of you or both of you getting hurt, disappearing, _dying_ —”

His voice cracks on the last word, and that’s when Keith sees a teardrop falling down Lance’s cheek. He swipes it away with his thumb.

Lance shudders before continuing, his voice congested and croaky. “And I just—I’m never prepared to say it. I can’t even say it in those dreams. I’m never ready. And then I wake up and see you both alive and I want to tell you before anything even happens, but then I start thinking about the two of you getting hurt in real life, and it hurts, it hurts so bad . . .”

His words become sobbing, incomprehensible nonsense buried in Keith’s shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shiro turn back at the two of them, startled by Lance’s sobbing. Keith can’t think of any way to signal anything back to him because he’s too busy clinging to Lance and wracking his brain for something to say or do other than hold him close and offer gentle shushes. At the same time, he feels them turn around, back in the direction of the planet they just took off from.

But Lance is right, the more he thinks about it. He doesn’t want to linger on it, but it’s so easy for Keith to default to the worst-case scenario. Lance just got to this one first. His heart aches with all the love he feels for Lance and Shiro, and the thought of them being hurt rattles his entire being. He’s already seen Shiro die once—they all did. Lance even died once himself. Keith, though, has survived through it all. It doesn’t seem fair.

They’ve landed again within minutes, and Lance’s sobbing hasn’t calmed down at all. He desperately grasps at Keith and gives up on trying to form words. Then, Keith feels new weight above them as Shiro joins the huddle and holds the two of them close with his one arm. Shiro tries whispering to Keith to ask what’s going on. He tries, but nothing comes out of his mouth other than an unexpected sob of his own. He scrubs at his eyes with the one hand smushed between his and Lance’s bodies. When he opens his eyes again, Shiro’s looking down at them with horrified desperation, and his eyes are quickly turning shiny with tears as well.

But Shiro gets up again a few seconds later. He hears him turn the comms on and explain that they’re going to take a break from travelling for the day. Staticky voices from all across the team are asking with so much fear in their voices about what’s going on.

“I’ll explain later,” Shiro says. “Just—this trip’s been wearing down on all of us.”

There are more questions exploding from the comms, and Shiro tries to stutter out more explanations. When he can’t take it anymore, he turns the comms off completely, sheds his armor, and goes right back to Keith and Lance again. This time, Shiro really has tears streaking down his face.

They stay like that for hours. Lance exhausts himself into sleep, only trusting himself to when Shiro and Keith are petting his hair and making it clear that they aren’t letting him go. Keith finds himself humming the melody to Lance’s song.

Shiro and Keith wait until Lance is softly snoring to discuss what just happened. Though Keith nearly starts crying again just recalling it, Shiro listens patiently and connects some dots. Lance was always so chatty and insistent that he needed to check out for potential dangers so he could be a “useful co-pilot.” Connect that paranoia to his nightmares, and everything makes sense.

The discussion turns into an exchange of “I love you”s as Shiro leans over to press several kisses to Keith’s jaw, then several more to the side of Lance’s forehead. Then he, as well, falls asleep.

Keith doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

As Keith lies awake, staring at Shiro and Lance’s sleeping faces, he hears the comms crackling. Concerned, he slowly begins to sit up, trying his hardest not to jostle the others.

_“This is Krolia in the Black Lion. Do any of you copy?”_

She’s whispering, and the words are clipped but wavering. In all of Keith’s time knowing Krolia, she’s rarely sounded nervous, so he almost thinks he’s hallucinating for a moment.

When no one responds and Keith begins untangling himself from Lance and Shiro, the comms turn on again, and her voice is a little louder and more frantic. _“I repeat, does anyone copy? Anyone in the Red Lion? This is urgent. Keith? Shiro? Lance?”_

Chills go up Keith’s spine, but he takes a deep breath and hurries over to the comms, picks it up, and speaks in the same low, quiet tone as his mother. “Keith in Red. What’s going on?”

_“Stay close to the ground and wake up the others,”_ she says immediately. _“Hostile forces on your three o’clock and headed right at you. I think they want to attack while we’re vulnerable.”_

Crouching, the blood starts pumping through Keith’s veins. “What? How? How did they follow us?” He pauses—now isn’t the time for that question. His mind is still whirring and working through a bad bout of fight or flight. “Never mind, uh—what does it look like they’re planning?”

_“They think we’re all asleep. They must be planning an ambush. They’ve been hiding behind a crater for the past few minutes, but I just saw one of them—”_

Suddenly, he hears whirring. It sounds a little bit like a laser, but too close, and the noise lasts for too long.  

_“There’s no time. Keith, now!”_ Krolia shouts.

He can’t hear if she shouts more instructions before there’s a deafening boom from outside. The force of it throws Keith off his feet and tumbling backwards. His head hits the wall, hard—hard enough that he can’t get his vision to straighten out for several agonizing seconds. Before he can reorient himself, he tries getting up and falls forward—or backward—or to the side—he can’t really tell.

He feels Shiro attempting to hoist him up again, but his ears are still adjusting to the shock of the whole thing. Though he can’t hear it, he knows he hears more voices trying to communicate over the comms, and Shiro and Lance are also asking what’s going on—

But all Keith can recognize is that Lance and Shiro are still wearing their casual clothes.

“Both of you, get your armor on!” he shouts with enough force to nearly send him tumbling again, but Shiro only holds him closer.

Yet again, his brain is too far away for him to process the words. He hears frantic shouting between the two of them, and Lance hoists up Keith by his other side and ushers him toward the back of the Red Lion.  

There’s another couple of booming noises, but it only causes the ground to quake a little bit. He can keep his balance, if only because Shiro deposits Keith entirely into Lance’s arms, and Lance lowers him down to the ground. He recognizes he’s in the far corner of the Red Lion. Lance holds him by the shoulders, and that’s when his words start to make sense.

“. . . getting your armor. Shiro’s gonna guard you. Just hang tight, babe. I love you.”

Oh, right. Keith left his armor in the Black Lion.

He tries to verbally object to the idea—there’s no way he wants either of them going out there when there’s so much chaos going on outside —but the words slur in his mouth and Lance shushes him before getting up again.

“You stay safe, too,” Lance tells Shiro while he puts on his armor.

The two exchange a quick peck, and they tell each other “I love you” simultaneously. Lance takes a deep breath, puts on his helmet, raises his shield, and rushes out.

Keith feels like he stares in a daze for hours. His mind is screaming all sorts of instincts to _get up_ and _run_ and _fight_ and _go after Lance_ , but his limbs just don’t cooperate. Even when he tries to get up, Shiro holds him down again with a tight embrace.

“Just take a minute. It’s going to be okay,” Shiro insists. He hears Shiro’s breath in his ear, attempting to stay even but jolting when his lungs deny him a deep breath.

Keith gives it a try—following Shiro’s attempted deep breaths. Everything becomes even clearer the more he focuses on his breath. There’s all sorts of shouting across the comms advising Lance through the terrain, where to be careful and when to duck and when there’s a new threat coming his way.

Keith’s positive he can stand up again after that, and Shiro reluctantly allows it. While he feels unsteady, he gets there. Shiro keeps one hand on him just in case.

He also takes advantage of his upright position to get back over to the front of the Red Lion and look out. He sees Galra soldiers, no surprise there. There’s only a handful of them, maybe seven or eight, many of them hiding behind bushes. Their armor doesn’t look standard to any Keith has witnessed before. None of them appear very large or intimidating—but they’re certainly going at it with all they’ve got.  

They’re all shooting with their laser guns at Lance, who easily deflects with his shield. He seems to be handling himself well. Not as much can be said about the others, whose Lions aren’t moving at all.

_“Come on, come on,”_ he hears Pidge mutter, and Hunk is making similar distressed noises.

“What’s going on?” Keith asks.

There’s a booming error sound. Keith jumps back, but he soon realizes that it’s not Red’s error noise—it’s coming from the comms. In fact, there are several. Three at once.

_“Blue’s not starting up!”_ Allura exclaims.

_“Neither is Green!”_

_“Guys,”_ Hunk says, _“I think those bombs those Galra set up deactivated the—”_

His voice disappears. As do Pidge and Allura’s. The lights on each Lion dim into nothingness.

_“Shit!”_ Krolia curses. _“Down three Lions—Lance, watch your back!”_

As if it wasn’t terrifying enough to lose contact with everyone else, Keith also sees a laser shoot Lance right in the shoulder, and he hears Lance cry out. Lance stumbles, but only briefly. He doesn’t even spare his shoulder a second glance.

_“No worries, I’m good!”_ Lance hisses in pain a little at the end of his reassurance, but he sounds unusually energetic nonetheless.

Shiro’s posture relaxes; his heart restarts. “You’re doing amazing, baby,” he says breathlessly through the comms. “Doing great.”

Lance runs a few more feet, and Krolia ushers him into the Black Lion. Krolia manages to spare a few shots with her own gun, one shot which appears to hit one of the ambushers on impact, before closing Black up again.

_“Whoo!”_ Lance exclaims. He sounds too excited for being so closely acquainted to danger. _“Nice going, Krolia! Think you can lift me off to the Red Lion?”_

_“Already on it.”_ Krolia proves the statement when Keith sees the Black Lion hovers off the ground. _“Seems like their bombs didn’t work that well on Black or Red. Shiro, stand by and get ready to load Lance in.”_

Shiro nods. His eyes are narrowed and hovering over the command center.

Keith looks back at the offending Galra. Most of them stop shooting and start looking nervous when the Black Lion takes off. A few of them even try to run off. One of them starts shouting at the others, and they all turn back around to look at the apparent “leader.”

There’s probably more, but Keith doesn’t see it because Krolia lands Black in front of Red. Krolia and Shiro both open the Lions at the same time.

And the Galra make their attack.

They aim their weapons at Lance again. He still easily deflects their hits with a shield, even with Keith’s red armor in tow. Lance scurries in and wastes no time in getting in Red and passing up the armor.

“Holy fuck,” Keith whispers, and he takes the sides of Lance’s head and kisses his forehead. “You did it.”

“Yeah,” Lance says like that’s all he can make himself say. He looks insanely dazed. In fact, he still looks as exhausted as he did before he fell asleep.

Shiro starts to close Red up, and Krolia does the same for Black. At the same time, the Galra troops hurdle forward and make great leaps toward the Lions’ mouths.

Krolia curses again. _“They’re getting in! Shiro, close up Red!”_

Shiro’s still as concentrated as can be, and he follows the order exactly. He even turns Red’s mouth away from the bounding Galra.

It’s not enough.

Beams of lasers shoot at them as two Galra barrel down to the paladins. Two isn’t bad, Keith recognizes, as they’re outnumbered three-to-two in Red. Through the grunting and screaming and shooting sounding through the comms, he’s sure Krolia is severely outnumbered—but she can handle herself. He’s sure of it.

But Keith’s still not in his armor.

He ignores it, using quick instinct to use the armor as a shield when blasts get too close to him. He barrels over to the side and grabs his Marmora blade from his belt loop, activating it with ease.

His eyes are set on the Galra shooting at him specifically, one with blue, dotted markings across its face—and at closer glance, it’s a head shorter than Keith. Still, that fact doesn’t seem to sway this Galra. It stays back and continues shooting to no avail, and its confidence appears to crumble when Keith successfully rushes forward even through the attack.

The Galra shoots again, and Keith ducks to avoid the shot. While he’s down, Keith sticks a foot out and rams it against the Galra’s shin to send it tumbling down. With finality, Keith stands up tall and aims the blade down at it—

Then he hears Shiro’s agonized scream.

Smoke sizzles from the other Galra’s laser weapon, and Shiro’s down on the ground. He convulses and cries out and sobs his throat raw until his voice completely disappears in mere seconds—like the weapon, even seconds after making its hit, is actively killing Shiro.

“I’ve got you, Shiro!” Keith hears Lance shout, but he can’t see him, because he’s being tackled to the ground by the Galra he was fighting in the next moment.

The impact of the crash makes Keith lose hold of one of his armor pieces, but at least it’s the lower half—he can still use the upper half as a makeshift shield.

The Galra aims its weapon at Keith again, and it makes a shot at Keith’s leg that misses once, and another one that hits the chest plate.

Keith throws himself into a standing position again—feeling a little woozy, but that’s not important—and rushes forward with the blade again. This time, he makes a clean cut through the front of the laser. It explodes in the Galra’s hand, a significant enough combustion that it shrieks.  

The Galra discards its weapon on the ground as it continues to burn, and it lunges at Keith with its entire body. Despite being tinier than Keith, it packs enough force to get him back down on the ground. It punches Keith’s face once, twice—oh god, he should’ve at least had his helmet on—holds down his arms, and attempts to take his blade.

Keith pulls his arm back before the Galra can succeed. He gathers enough force to throw it off him and to the side. He holds the Galra down by a foot on the arm, throws its helmet off, and pierces the blade right through its throat. The Galra lets out a final gargle before going completely slack.  

Under normal circumstances, Keith would at least check to make sure it was completely dead. But it’s much more urgent to make sure Lance and Shiro—especially Shiro—are okay.

Shiro’s still lying on the ground right where Keith last saw him, except he’s not screaming anymore. He’s on his hands and knees, trying to get himself back up, but every movement seems nearly impossible. Lance is still fighting the Galra that shocked Shiro, more on defense and using the sword and his shield equally as protective measure, but he appears to be doing okay.

Actually, he realizes, he has time to get his armor on. So he picks up the discarded lower areas of his armor, slips everything on, and goes to Shiro.

When Keith offers his help, Shiro doesn’t even argue. At least having that little bit of support helps him get to his feet. He’s shaky, but he’s standing. He insists he can keep going with the fight. Keith disagrees, but he doesn’t say anything to stop him.

In this exchange, he only just catches sight of Lance falling on his back and losing his grip on the shield.

Keith’s voice feels separate from himself as he calls to Lance and barrels toward this other Galra.

Except this Galra’s a bit quicker-thinking than the last one. As he moves forward, the Galra holds its laser weapon out and hits his leg.

He can’t hear his own screams—he’s not sure if he does scream.

The agony starts in the leg and turns it to jelly and then fire and then back to jelly, and his brain becomes burning slush and his limbs becoming electrocuted, spineless spaghetti. His lungs seize and break on themselves, shriveling up into nothingness so he can’t even get the satisfaction of a single breath, even if a breath were to feel satisfying. The world is burning white with all his bones being broken at once, he’s bleeding out, his skull is cracking open, he’s suffocating, he’s drowning, he’s burning, he’s dying, he’s dying, he’s dying.

He sees a menacing figure above him, and the lips on it say _goodbye_.  

Keith asks why it’s telling him that.

It doesn’t answer him, just twists his arm off until it breaks and he’s screaming again.

But then, suddenly, things don’t burn anymore.

He’s on his side on the cold floor of the Red Lion. There are blurred figures in front of him, one on the ground like him and the other hovering above it.

His eyes clear up.

There’s Lance, trying to crawl away from the Galra, but the Galra’s foot on Lance’s chest and the hand around his throat keeps him in place. Lance’s helmet is on the ground, the glass on it smashed.

Keith tries hoisting himself up. His limbs are still separate from his control. He gets to one knee before becoming a ragdoll once again.

His crash catches the Galra’s attention. It frowns for a moment, but then it gives the ugliest grin.

It aims the gun at Lance’s head.

Lance struggles. Keith does, too. They’re both immobile, but he’s sure he’s looking at Lance with the same desperation as Lance is looking at him with.

His face is turning colors.

His eyes are too wide.

He knows.

There’s a “g” forming on his lips.

No, no. He’s not ready. It’s not his time to—

There’s a shot.

.

.

.

Its head is on the ground.

Shiro’s sword is high above his head.

There’s a laser mark just to the left of Lance’s head.

_He was just in time._

 

* * *

 

They were meant to be back on Earth within two days. But, given everything, they extend their schedule another five days. One to let the Lions recover—apparently those Galra just used a bomb that acted as a paralyzer to quintessence energy—and another four to settle on a rebel-approved planet with extra shielding across the entire planet.

The next planet wasn’t barren like most of the others they’d visited over their travels, but instead a full one neighboring the home planet of one of Matt’s radio chatter buddies. So they have everything they need: food, shelter, nice beds to sleep in, plenty of aliens to distract them from the chaos they’d just endured, and these aliens even offer free animal care while the team recovers. It’s a useful, perhaps optimal, setup.

Well, for those who weren’t first-hand witnesses of the worst of the attack.

Keith settles himself on Lance’s right side, Shiro on his left, and they refuse to get up for as long as they can help it. They kiss each other’s hands and stare at each other and sleep and sleep and sleep for as long as their bodies let them.

(Even Keith, who’s down to needing only nine hours of sleep per day. Apparently Galra aren’t as susceptible to falling into the SSS’ lasting effect on circadian rhythm. Krolia was almost completely back to normal as soon as they left the SSS, apparently.)

They spend more of their awake hours crying than anything else. Sometimes it’s simple tears streaming down their cheeks after a whispered “I love you”; other times, one of them is buried between the other two, becoming light-headed from violent sobbing and trying to rationalize and explain the guilt that’s eating them alive.

No matter how many times Lance and Shiro insist Keith isn’t to blame, he knows it’s true. He was the one who left the armor behind in the first place. He hadn’t even needed the armor; he should have pointed out that there were several others in the Lions who didn’t have, and hadn’t needed, armor. He’d lunged forward and put everyone in danger when Shiro had obviously been hurt. He made the wrong call, gave his attention to the wrong person.

But then there’s Shiro who blames himself for getting hurt in the first place, for getting in such a pickle that Lance felt like he need to sacrifice himself—

Lance who gave up too early and tried preparing himself to say goodbye—

They’re all so guilty, so broken.

But at the very least, they’re together.

Even if Keith wakes up from nightmares of seeing Lance’s blown-open eyes—except Lance actually says the “g” word and those eyes remained permanently wide and scared—Shiro and Lance would rub at his shoulders and move him to the middle of the bed, kissing his cheeks and lips and hands and reminding him that this was reality and that everything was okay.

After all, Keith does the same for Shiro and Lance.

At the very least, Keith is thankful that Krolia doesn’t enter the room under any circumstances. Even if it was his fault for not having the armor, Krolia enabled Lance’s self-sacrificing tendencies for him to get the armor that made everything go wrong. He could hear it already, with her patiently trying to explain that it was the right call for _her_ , knowing she could never forgive herself if her only son had died from having no armor, but that wasn’t what he needed to hear. She wouldn’t even consider how much he would _want_ to be dead if Lance had really died.

But, she doesn’t. So, he stews over it in the shared bed and accepts that he may forgive her someday.

“I don’t ever want to hear that song again,” Keith admits on the night of the last day.

“The song?” Lance repeats. He tilts his head.

Shiro thinks about it for a second, but when Keith’s words clarify in his head, he explains, “The goodbye song you used to sing.”

“Oh, yeah.” Lance nods in understanding. “I don’t, either. Bad call to choose that.”

Keith shrugs. “I mean, not back then. Just—now.”

Lance hums and nods again, slowly. His eyes slide shut like he’s about to fall asleep again. But, then, he looks back at the wall by the front door.

Keith follows the gaze. It leads to the guitar Lance bought at the space mall. Hunk had brought it in during one of his last trips for unloading the Lions. It’s dusty and ugly and cracked—likely from the impact of the explosions. The biggest crack travels from the top-right corner of the guitar’s curve toward the hole in the middle before ending at the bottom-right side. It’s surely still playable, but whether anyone is willing to play it is a complete mystery.

He wants it gone.

“Lance,” Keith says, “I will personally buy you six new guitars if you let me destroy that one. Just this _one_ thing before we go home.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Lance admits, and he gets up from the bed willingly for the first time in days. “Shiro?”

Shiro doesn’t say anything aloud, but he smiles and also gets up and yanks the guitar into his grip. “Just so long as I get to smash it first.”

Discordant, echoing guitar strings have never sounded so satisfying.

That’s all the healing they need, at least at the time, to make the rest of the trip home.

 

* * *

 

**Present Day**

Keith gets up and shuts off the radio before the song gets a chance to end.

Shiro doesn’t protest; he stares down at the floor and runs his hand through his hair. His forehead crinkles and his eyes close—Keith can almost see the events of five years prior flying through Shiro’s head. Shiro had been doing so well recently; he didn’t need this kind of relapse if Keith could help it. Keith sits down next to Shiro again and holds him close in silence.

Finally, the silence becomes too much.

“I’m calling Lance,” Keith finally decides. He lifts his phone from the coffee table and speed-dials Lance in less than three seconds. Then, he turns on speaker phone.

Three dial tones pass before there’s a crunchy pick-up sound. _“Hey, babe,”_ Lance answers. His voice is unbelievably bright and peppy, especially after three hours of nothing but running errands.

“Hey, babe,” Keith echoes. “How’s errands going?”

_“Pretty good—actually found something to surprise you and Shiro with when I get home, on top of everything else, so I’d consider that a trip well done.”_

Keith rolls his eyes and chuckles. “How much longer do you think you’ll be out?”

_“Um—”_ Lance goes silent for a few moments. _“Thirty minutes? Maybe? I can be home earlier. Why?”_

Keith can’t really find the words to explain it. So, like every time when the words don’t come naturally, he passes the phone to Shiro.

Shiro takes the phone and holds it close to his mouth. “I’ll finish whatever errands you want, but I think we ran into . . . something at home.” He certainly tries to keep control to his voice

_“Something? What kind of something? I mean, I’m leaving the store right now, but . . .”_

The phone crackles, and Keith vaguely hears Lance explaining and apologizing to an employee about how he doesn’t need the things in his cart anymore and it’s an emergency, and he hears Lance’s feet pounding against smooth stone, then asphalt.

_“Okay, I’ll be there in three minutes. Can you explain what’s going on, babe?”_

Shiro takes a deep breath, then says, “We heard the song on the radio. The camping one. The ‘g’ word one.”

_“Oh.”_ Keith barely catches it; Lance’s voice is so soft, and there’s a little noise of understanding after it. _“That one. Yeah, I’m definitely getting home as soon as I can.”_ Wheels screech in the background.

Shiro sighs in relief and leans against Keith. Even thinking about the song feels exhausting for him—and Keith certainly feels the same fatigue, now that he’s thinking about it.

Lance keeps talking to them through the rest of his drive home in an attempt to distract them, going on and on about the simple complaints of going shopping on one of the busiest weekends of the year. He groans over how many soccer moms he’s seen in each store, all because there’s apparently a huge soccer match scheduled for a couple hours from now, and he’s so surprised that most of the kids are angels when the moms are asking to speak to every manager. He agonizes over the long lines he saw and admits he’s glad he didn’t have to go in line for the last store—that place was the worst.

_“I’m pulling in the driveway right now, mis amores,”_ Lance finally says. He’s right; Keith sees the bright blue car pulling into the driveway. _“I’ll be inside in a sec. Love you.”_ Lance makes a kissing noise on the other end of the phone that Shiro and Lance return before Shiro turns the phone off and they get up to greet Lance with some real kisses of their own.

Some people consider it strange that they never end a call with even a simple “bye,” let alone a “goodbye”; they never say it because they don’t have to. Perhaps they’ll never anticipate it, but they can _expect_ they’ll have several decades before they use the word.

 

* * *

 

_And when the stars fall I will lie awake_

_You’re my shooting star_


End file.
